


Shine On

by LittleLinor



Category: Love Live! School Idol Festival (Video Game), Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 23:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12945945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLinor/pseuds/LittleLinor
Summary: Mari always shined so bright that no one would see the fear and love underneath(A short Howarts AU oneshot)





	Shine On

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a mystery au meme!
> 
> For context, Mari went to Beauxbatons for three years and came back for her seventh.  
> (She's a Puff)

It had started innocently enough.  
A simple snack run! Slipping into the kitchen with Hanamaru was basically a ritual at this point, after all the years they'd done it, and even when Hanamaru was too busy with work (or with whichever new book she got herself hooked into this time), the kitchen house elves knew Ruby well enough that she was always welcome, especially because she always treated them with kindness and had spoken out on their behalf a couple of times when some of her classmates were being nasty.  
So she'd been tiptoeing back from the kitchen and towards the dungeons when she'd all but bumped into the blonde transfer student everyone was talking about.  
Thankfully, her pie didn't actually fall.  
“Oops. Désolée~ sorry about that.”  
“A-ah. It's nothing.”  
“Oh my, aren't you Dia's little sister?”  
“Y-yeah. Um… Mari, right?”  
“That's right!”  
Ruby just smiled. Mari had been a close friend of her sister's, but as far as she knew, there'd been a huge fallout before she left for France, and Dia had stopped mentioning her. Why Mari would be so friendly now, she had no idea, but she wasn't about to let herself be drawn into something without knowing the full situation.  
Keeping up her most neutral smile was the best choice.  
“So, what are you doing in these parts at this hour, Ruby, hmm? Does your sister know you're here?”  
“Why would she?” she pouted. And then a sudden doubt hit her. “You're not going to tell her, are you?”  
“No, no. I know how she is. Putting the rules above all else. But,” she added with a slightly more seductive smile, and Ruby made a mental note not to underestimate her; she could prove as tricky to talk to as some of her shadier classmates, “since you're here… I was wondering if you'd hear me out.”  
“… hear you out on what?”  
Mari smiled.  
“I need your help with something… so in exchange, I can tell you everything about what happened three years ago, and why your sister's changed so much.”

It really wasn't much of a dilemma.

And that was how Ruby found herself joining Shine On.  
At first, it had been just curiosity, and (if she was completely honest), a bit of a desire to do something Important under her sister's nose. But the more the year went on, the more news from the outside caught up to them, the more the cheerful underground training group's mission started feeling serious and painfully needed.  
She wasn't in danger, a guilty part of her whispered at her sometimes. Even if there was political unrest, the Kurosawa were well respected, and courteous enough to non purebloods to not be a target for reprisal while still isolated enough to not be branded by the (alarmingly growing) other side.  
But Ruby wasn't eleven and scared anymore. She was no longer the sheltered girl who'd gone from hiding behind her parents to hiding behind her sister. She was fifteen, and she had _friends_ , and those friends could be caught in this war someday, if it ever broke out.  
And if that happened, she'd be right there with them.  
If she could use her family's status and her magic skills for anything, let it be that.

And along the way, she'd somehow ended up growing closer to Mari herself.  
There was something about the older girl that was just fascinating. She looked flighty and innocently cheerful, but there was a strength and a sense of focus in her that made Ruby's heart beat in strange ways. _It's just wariness_ , she'd told herself at first. A reflex from years of playful and less playful mind games, a sixth sense for dangerous people, a deep knowledge never to underestimate anyone, regardless of house or origin. But it wasn't just that.  
Mari _shone_ , truly, whether it was the sparkly, superficial shine of her bright disposition, or the fierce fire she hid underneath. Mari could be both leader and supporter, a true magician who adapted herself to the situation despite staying overwhelmingly herself. She made Ruby want to do better. She made Ruby want her to _look_ at her. She wanted to make her proud, and the realisation was such an earthquake in her worldview: she'd never wanted the approval of anyone other than her family before.  
But Mari made her want to challenge herself, and her heart faltered and grew stronger with every cheerful “bien joué!” when she bested an opponent or learned a new, difficult spell.

It's when the first wavelets of actual war reach them that she finds her courage, when the fear of knowing people have already died (but it's just a madman, people say, it doesn't mean anything, it's not _really_ terrorism, don't make things worse by pretending this is a conflict), when Dia's already confronted Mari and Kanan with a tight, scared face, her years of burying her yearning to fight because _she needs to keep her friends out of this_ finally breaking down on her and leaving relief in their wake, when she and Hanamaru and Yohane have joined hands and made a pact, sealed not by magic but by their own hearts, that blood meant nothing and that they would protect each other and others, no matter what.  
When Mari comes back to school after the attack on her family that almost cost her her life, her eyes struggling to keep up the smile that her face keeps as a reflex, Ruby pulls her aside, her hand tight and safe in hers, and stands on tiptoes to kiss her, pressed into a dark corner, before giving her a hug, long and warm and tight.  
“I'll protect you,” she says. “So just tell me what to do.”


End file.
